Decided October 2, 2000 The petitioner Charlie McClendon's petition for certification for appeal from the Appellate Court, 58 Conn. App. 436 (AC 18748), is denied. Matthew T. Gilbride, special public defender, in support of the petition.
On July 10, 1995, while his direct appeal was pending, the petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in which he alleged that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel at his criminal trial on the ground that his trial counsel failed to conduct a full, thorough and complete cross-examination of the state's chief witness and that his counsel failed to call relevant witnesses in his defense. Following an evidentiary hearing on that first habeas petition, the court issued a memorandum of decision rejecting the petitioner's claims, and the court subsequently denied his petition for certification to appeal from the judgment denying habeas relief. On appeal, we determined that the habeas court had not abused its discretion in denying the petition for certification to appeal. McClendon v. Commissioner of Correction, 58 Conn. App. 436, 438, 755 A.2d 238, cert. denied, 254 Conn. 920, 759 A.2d 1025 (2000). On November 14, 2002, the petitioner filed the amended petition at issue in this case, in which he claimed that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel at his criminal trial due to errors of omission by his trial counsel.
Specifically he claimed that his trial counsel (1) failed to conduct a full, thorough and complete examination of the chief witness against him, Darlene Hale Kelley, and (2) failed to call witnesses that would have assisted in the impeachment of Darlene Hale Kelley. After a trial on the merits, the habeas court (Corrigan, J.) denied the petition in a memorandum of decision dated June 25, 1998. The petitioner then appealed Judge Corrigan's habeas decision which appeal was dismissed by the Appellate Court. McClendon v. Commissioner of Correction, 58 Conn. App. 436, 755 A.2d 238, cert. denied, 254 Conn. 920, 759 A.2d 1025 (2000). In the present amended petition, the petitioner again claims that his trial attorneys were ineffective because they (1) failed to adequately prepare Michael Leippe, a defense expert on eyewitness identification, so as to prevent the court's exclusion of Mr. Leippe's testimony and make a record that would allow an appellate court to determine that the trial court, in excluding such evidence, abused its discretion, and (2) failed to adequately research the issue of uncharged misconduct so as to keep out evidence of other robberies and have a stronger record on appeal.